(I hold my glass up to the afternoon sky, highlighting the melting ice cubes in my Irish whiskey accessory, wee waves of water frozen in place, like rainbows of oil in a stagnant puddle. I close my eyes and look up to the setting sun, warm my face, and color the whole world in the fleshy rose shade of the back of my eyelids. This is a place of peace, and it is unassailable, and from here I say Hello, San Diego.)
My favorite bartender doesn’t drink. She is a barely over 5 ft waif of a waif that practices jiujitsu and mixed martial arts and has taken down much larger, drunken women with said skills. Though her DJ name ends in ‘Hardcore’, the word ‘Precious’ is stubbornly more like to come to mind. She speaks with a thick Bostonian accent, tempered with the slow California cadence of Jeff Spicoli. When she dances, she does so the way I imagine a lemur might dance, if in the mood, because I suspect it allows her to dance all night without stopping. Were it five or fifty people mean mugging her for drinks at the bar, it would not prevent her from drawling on in a conversation with you until it reached its natural conclusion, and not before. She plays with her hair and smacks chewing gum and if you cross her she’s finished with you for life. I told her that I was going to see Huey Lewis and the News the other night because Why the Fuck Not, and the Boston hardcore punk fan eagerly (to be read: “Eagerly”) requested a video of them playing “I Want A New Drug,” if they were so kind as to do so. They were. She appreciated it. Precious.
San Diego, for some, is a forever long highway stretching beyond the horizon towards Asgard, where Erik “Ponch” Estrada’s raven locks perpetually flap in the wind as he rides his Kawasaki KZ-900P on into golden godhood, disco theme music crescendoing about him without a ceiling. And in that San Diego we can order bottle service around manicured rooftop firepits until Ragnarok, while we recline upon the saline pillows of our sisters, mothers and teachers, watching whales beach themselves below to pay a $25 cover, get roofied, and flop about to house music. But for the rest of us transplants and transients and erstwhile locals who may miss the heart and soul of headier days and more familiar locales, it may be enough to share a video of That Show you caught That Time with the good woman who gets you drunk, watch the languid smile spread slowly across her face, and remember that there is character and real human connection to be had, wherever you may go, even if you have to ask Huey Lewis to help you find it.
So, en garde, San Diego, I quest for your spirit, whatsoever it may be. I brought Irish, if you’re thirsty, by the by.
